Into the New World
by Ardently Indeed
Summary: LBD headcanon: Darcy plays the cello. Lizzie and Darcy in the Darcy family music room after a group dinner sometime during the Pemberley arc. Review and such.


**I just want Darcy to be a cellist so so so bad. Typos guaranteed. **

* * *

Research shows that human beings have an innate rhythm, that many intimate encounters in their most natural forms – embraces, glances – last three seconds. Three seconds has been proven to be the length of the ineffable _moment._

Lizzie Bennet stared at William Darcy for more than a moment.

Dinner at the Darcy house went so very well. Fitz and Gigi kept their scheming to a bare minimum, Bing stayed away from troublesome topics, and Caroline was as pleasant as she was capable of being, which is to say she sulked but didn't antagonize.

Darcy was telling, to Gigi's slight shame, the story of her first kiss with their gardener's son.

"He was sweet!" she said.

"He was _there_," he answered, which earned a chuckled from the other four, to Lizzie's surprise. _William Darcy, decent storyteller. _She toyed with the thought, and even though she witnessed its truth, it wouldn't settle. So she poured over his features as he regaled his dinner guests, found his posture to be erect but relaxed, his face easy though not beaming, and his hands active. And this new talent was yet another aspect of William Darcy that confounded her previous assumptions. So when the story at last ended, with Gigi's face in her hands and a sweep of pleasant laughter, Lizzie was still staring at Darcy. Even when the focus shifted to Fitz, who was yet a better narrator, she looked at Darcy.

A moment. The curves of his profile used to repulse her.

shifted his shoulders, and the way his muscles rippled under his thin dress shirt stirred something new and frightening in her gut.

Still she watched then she felt another gaze on her, turned to find Caroline's blank stare, seething and focused. Lizzie smiled, sipped her wine, and turned to Fitz as a punch line landed and amity breezed through the room again.

Unfortunately, during the conversation after chocolate mousse, Lizzie made the mistake of imagining the sixth member of their party as not Caroline, but her own sister, and the clench in her chest must have translated to her face, because Gigi and Darcy at once asked "Are you alright?"

"Fine!" she smiled a bit too quickly. "I have a bit of a headache, is all. Must have had too much wine. Which is excellent, by the way, thank you."

Fitz glanced at the clock over the fireplace. "This has been delightful, guys, really, but I've got plans in the morning, so I'd better get."

"We should be going, too," Caroline smiled, tight lipped, while folding her napkin away. "Lovely to see you as always, Gigi. Lizzie."

Lizzie nodded, pushed her chair out as well, and stood to find William Darcy's chest what felt like a very short distance from her. Her surprise was mirrored in his own face as he stepped back to let her pass, mumbled an apology. She ducked her head and slid past him.

"I don't suppose I could use your restroom before I go?" she asked.

"Down the hall there, fourth door on the left," Gigi smiled as she disappeared with her brother to retrieve their guests' coats.

Lizzie smiled and tried not to hurry for the hall. When she shut the bathroom door behind her, she sighed, braced her hands on the sparkling marble counter.

"What are you doing?" she asked her disheveled reflection. "You're fine. Go call a cab."

She ran cold water over her hands and touched up her hair before walking exiting back into the hall. Her phone, with her purse and coat, were in the foyer, but as she made her way there, she glanced through an open door to find a room with three fabric walls, the fourth shelved and full of vinyl, and over a dozen instruments on various stands. Curiosity bested her as she stepped onto the soft carpet within and discovered a turntable, stacks of annotated sheet music, and a pair of sturdy wooden chairs in the corner.

"Gigi said she doesn't play," she muttered, reaching for viola hanging from the wall.

"She doesn't."

"Oh!" Lizzie started and turned to see Darcy closing the door halfway behind him with her coat and purse in hand.

"We called you a cab, it should be here in five or ten minutes."

She took her belongings from his extended arms, tried to ignore the breadth of his shoulders, and smiled. Five to ten minutes in the Darcy family home. Might as well kill time.

"Who played what?"

"Ah, this room was primarily my mother's. She wanted to play for the New York Philharmonic growing up, but couldn't decide which instrument she loved most."

"So she played them all."

"But was proficient at none, yes." His gaze left Lizzie and she felt lighter, but the sensation wasn't as satisfying as she'd hoped. He drank in every detail of the room. "I haven't spent much time in here as of recent."

"Do you play all these?"

"Ah, no. I was instructed at the tender age of six to pick one and stay with it."

"And which might that be?"

"The cello. Not the most glamorous of instruments, but I'm quite fond of it."

"Cello," she repeated. "Do you practice often?"

"No…no, not really. I did diligently while we still lived here exclusively."

_Before your parents died, before city apartments and advanced degrees and family scandals, _she thought, shifting her purse and coat over her arm. And then before she knew what she was saying, before she could think better of the request, she said, "Would you play something now?"

She expected him to regard her with surprise – she'd certainly surprised herself – but his brow was level and his eyes fixed on her, steady. He looked curious as to why she'd asked, as to what she wanted, as to why she wasn't waiting by the front door with baited breath for that cab.

"What were you thinking?" he asked, taking a step into the room, closer to her.

"Uh."

"I mean, did you have a piece in mind." He next step took him away from her, to the wooden chairs in the corner, one of which he drew into the middle of the room.

"Oh! Um, no, not really, it was just a whim. Look, Darcy, you don't have to play anything!" She forced a smile. "I know you probably have work to do and the cab will be here soon-"

But he'd already taken the cello from its stand, adjusted the end pin, and sat. He rested the chestnut cello between his knees as he tightened his bow and asked, "Do you listen to Dvorak?"

"Oh. No, no I don't." She had no idea what to do with her hands, her arms, so she crossed them tight over her chest and tried to diminish her presence in the Darcy family music room. _This is rude, I'm intruding._

"He was my favorite composer in high school," Darcy said, and while Lizzie continued to listen, she was very distracted by the idea of William Darcy ever being seventeen, distracted by the idea of him being a person with an actual past. "His New World Symphony is one of the few I attend regularly, and though the cello never gets the melody in the second movement of that symphony, there's a moment towards the end of the Largo that I always tried to play, a quiet moment."

He ran resin over his bow, settled in, and drew the bow over the wide strings. The pure, dark, honey sound that filled the room stirred that gut longing in Lizzie again.

Darcy shifted, suddenly seemed aware of what he was doing, and his typical discomfort arose.

"It's a little out of tune," he murmured.

"That's fine," Lizzie said. She didn't care about her posture now. She didn't care if the cab was there yet. She wanted to hear Darcy play.

"Alright," he said, and glanced at her. She nodded, smiled.

"Alright," he repeated.

And he raised his arms and played for four minutes the melody of the second movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony. His elbows, his wrists, his shoulders, all of him shifted to make the slow, luscious sound. Fingers arched precariously around the grip of his bow, pushed with gentle resolve on the cello's neck to coax each veiled run of notes into the room. His eyes closed, his head bowed, and for four minutes, Lizzie Bennet found she was looking at a man she had never really met, a man she wanted to be near. She felt his music in the balls of her feet, the stretch of her shoulders, felt each hair raise on her arm as the sounds tipped up and down with grace and care. William Darcy's cello played the sound of pleasant sighs as sleep approaches, played the clench in her chest when a flock of sparrows took flight. No music had filled her with _meaning _like this piece, this piece that wasn't even a piece, was only his memories of a work he loved stitched together with reservation. And it was a lullaby, a simple vow, music to stir the unmoving soul.

Lizzie Bennet found as William Darcy played warmth she hadn't felt since she's laughed with Charlotte or hugged Jane spread through her bones and out to her fingers. And she mourned the loss of the music when his bow slowed to a stop and he sat, eyes closed, in the new silence.

* * *

"Darcy."

He looked up, lowered his bow.

"Would you… I would really like to hear that again. But all of it." She waved a hand. "You know, with the violins and brass and all."

"I have a few decent recording if you're interested."

"Oh. Yes, thank you, I'd love to borrow one if you don't… if you don't mind."

Muscles in his neck tightened, and he made a conscious effort not to tuck his chin back. The word _love _sounded so smooth in her voice. He wondered what _William _would sound like.

"Certainly, let me see what I can find," he said, breaking eye contact and rose to replace his cello to its stand. He strode to the shelved wall, ran his fingers over titles. "I don't suppose you have access to a decent turntable."

"Oh, no," she said. Her weight shifted from one high-heel to the other. "No, I don't, but what I was actually wondering was if you'd like to go, eh, go to a symphony at some point."

He hands stilled over plastic cases as he turned to look at her. He'd half expected her gaze to be averted, but her wide eyes framed by an earnest face stared flat at him.

"That symphony, that is. If it's ever in town while…I'm in town."

_I'd love that, _he wanted to say.

"I'd like that," he did say.

She sighed a quick laugh.

"Good," she said. "And why don't you play more often? That was lovely."

He didn't know how to answer. Banter, that he could handle on some level. Costume theater, with the guise of fantasy to separate him from the situation, that he could handle. Being in a quiet room and asked personal questions by Lizzie Bennet after she paid him an honest compliment – this proved more difficult.

"I haven't considered it much, haven't played much since our parents died," he said, returning to his search of a quality recording. "Partially because Gigi and I aren't always here anymore and my apartment is devoid of instruments. Partially because playing can feel foreign."

"Foreign?"

He pulled a disc from the shelf, walked over to her, the carpet yielding beneath his heels.

"Like scenes from someone else's life."

He held the Dvorak out to her, careful to hold his hands far enough back to prevent accidental contact. But when she braced her fingers around its edges, he didn't let go immediately, and their eyes locked, and his throat tightened when he noticed that her breath had stilled and her shouldered had tensed. _One, two, three seconds. _His jaw clenched, but neither moved.

_Four, five, six. _Her chest rose a few inches as her lungs found air. Something like relief spilled into his spine.

_Seven, eight, ni-_

"Thank you," she said, and he let the disc go. "I'll get this back to you on Monday if I see you."

If.

"Please, keep it as long as you like," he said. "It merits multiple listens."

Her knuckled tightened around the plastic case, but her small smile shared none of that strain.

"I can just burn it onto my laptop."

"Right. Of course." He blinked, kept his feet from shifting and his hands from twitching. She nodded and opened her mouth to say what he presumed to be a goodbye.

"But if you like it, pleasekeepit."

Her eyebrows raised just a fraction as she blinked. "Alright. Thank you, Darcy."

He bit back the _Call me William _that weighed on his tongue and nodded instead.

"That cab is probably here by now," she said, turning her shoulders away from him. He nodded again and leaned over her to push the door.

"Always so chivalrous."

"Not always."

"Always as of recent," she amended.

He smiled. "Fair enough."

"Goodnight, Darcy." She held Dvorak with both her hands. "Enjoy the rest of your weekend."

"You as well."

And then she was gone.

He sighed, surveyed the music room. Empty again.

He pulled out his phone and searched for upcoming events in the San Francisco area. Unfortunately, the New World Symphony was nowhere to be found. But she'd asked him. She'd asked him.

* * *

On the twenty minute ride back to the house, Lizzie didn't put the CD in her bag. She held it two handed the whole way. And when she'd paid the driver, gone inside and undressed, she put it on, skipped the first movement, and listened in complete stillness to the second movement. And when, after twelve minutes, it finished, she hit repeat. Again and again, until she sighing fell asleep.

* * *

**I'm not super thrilled with how this turned out but at least it isn't sitting on my hard drive rotting now. Monday, come faster.**


End file.
